In most cases, SEO will focus on getting a website to rank for generic keywords that are relevant to the company’s products or services. However, often the most relevant keyword of all – the company’s brand name – is overlooked.

All too frequently SEO practitioners only perform a cursory check to see if a company website ranks for its own brand name. Does a branded search deliver the website as the first result? Yes? Tick that checkbox and move on.

Sometimes however, that can be too hasty a box to tick. Claiming the top spot for your own brand name isn’t always sufficient to claim all branded search traffic, especially if there is content out there on the wider web that could negatively impact public perception of your company.

It pays to make sure that you claim the entire first page of search results for your brand name, ensuring your official corporate presence is the only thing searchers see when they type your company name in to Google or other search engines.

How can you dominate your branded search result to this extent? It’s not particularly difficult:

1. Website with Sitelinks

Of course you want the very first result on your brand name to be your own company website. This will be the case in most instances, however; sometimes you’ll need to work a bit at claiming that top spot, especially if your brand name is a generic phrase instead of a unique name.

This can be accomplished through the usual SEO methods; ensure your website can be fully crawled and indexed, acquire a healthy amount of links with branded anchor text pointing to the site, and try to get plenty of online brand citations.

Whilst cheap directory links are often harmful to a website nowadays, for branded search it’s worth investing in placements on some of the remaining trustworthy online directories such as Yelp and Thomson Local.

Getting a block of sitelinks as part of your branded SERP is harder to do, as it relies mostly on Google properly interpreting the search as a brand name search, and its ability to make sense of your website’s structure. A solid information architecture is required so that Google understands your site’s hierarchy and can show relevant sitelinks.

Top result with sitelinks.

2. Social Profiles

The second thing to do is ensure your company has active accounts on all major social media sites. Due to the inherent online authority that most social media platforms enjoy, having a publicly viewable social profile on the main sites – Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc – you are almost guaranteed to have several of these rank on the first page of search results for your brand name.

On top of that, when you include your website URL in these social profiles, this will also contribute to your website claiming the top result for your branded search result.

A Google+ Local page can be especially useful in this regard, as often you can get a knowledge-graph-like box on the right-hand side of the search results page, which is filled with information from your company’s Google+ presence:

Google+ Local-powered information box.

3. Multimedia Content

Google likes to include elements from vertical search, like videos and images, in their main search results. To ensure your brand name claims all available space on search results pages, it’s worth investing in multimedia content to publish online.

For example, you could feature a set of YouTube videos about your company, ensuring these are optimized for your brand name. You could also have a number of images of your company logo and premises available for free use on sites like Flickr and Photobucket, again optimized for visibility on your brand name.

That way if Google decides to include multimedia elements in your branded search result, chances are it’ll be your own content that is displayed and not a competitor’s. This is especially useful if your brand name is also a generic phrase, and Google is more likely to include universal search elements.

Image results on a generic phrase that’s also a brand name

Own Your Brand Space

Never take a branded search result for granted. You should periodically check on your branded SERPs and make sure your company claims all the available spaces on the first page, and ideally a majority on the second page, as well.

Branded search dominance ensures that you claim all branded searches for yourself, and also mitigates the risks of bad publicity ruining your online brand. With total brand dominance in Google, chances are no one will ever see a negative mention of your brand unless they specifically go looking for it.

About the Author

With over a decade of experience in SEO and digital marketing, Barry Adams is a leading SEO consultant based in Belfast, serving a wide range of clients throughout Europe. Barry is a regular speaker at digital conferences such as SMX, Friends of Search, and SAScon, and lectures on SEO and digital marketing for the University of Ulster, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Digital Marketing Institute. He is an editor and contributor for State of Digital and regularly blogs about SEO on his own website which was shortlisted for Best Blog at the 2013 UK Search Awards.

Your clients are unique – and it’s that difference that sets them apart from the competition and makes them shine brighter to their customers. Your clients need a USP that sets them apart and cannot be duplicated. Matt Ambrose tells you how to capture the perfect USP in post #1.

I know, I know. Writing for B2B sites isn’t easy. Products like lanyards and construction helmets aren’t necessarily sexy. Your competitors’ sites are probably just as boring. And the powers-that-be may feel more comfortable with “just the facts” feature-filled content.

Yet, for many (most) B2B sites, there’s room for so much improvement. By adding just a little bit of spice, you can connect with your readers and boost your conversion rates.

Here’s how to do it:

Use the word “you” in your copy

You are not selling to robots. Nor are you selling to a “company.” You are selling to people. And people (otherwise known as your target readers) respond to the word “you.” Using the word personalizes your message and makes your content more compelling. For a great example, check out Basecamp’s homepage. Their line, “Our job is to help you do your job better” is a fantastic mission statement. It’s punchy, personal and implies a pretty big benefit. Plus, it makes you want to look more closely at their services – so the content is definitely doing it’s job.

Shorten your sentences

Many B2B companies are guilty of zombie run-on sentences. You read one endless sentence and BOOM you see another one. They’re everywhere. And they suck the life out of the content. Guess what? Nobody wants to read your 35+ word sentences. If you find yourself writing long, paragraph-like sentences, mix up your sentence structure, stat! Write one longer sentence and then follow it up with a shorter one. Experiment. Your copy will be much punchier as a result.

Get inside your readers’ heads

What is your reader really thinking? It’s not, “Hey, I’m going to purchase these firefighting helmets for our team.” It’s probably something like, “I need to find the safest, most comfortable helmets for the best possible cost.” You shouldn’t start writing until you have fleshed out what your unique sales proposition is, what’s driving your reader to make a purchase and what motivates them. If companies in your industry are known for poor customer service, play up the fact that you have staff on call 24/7. If your solution is high value (and more expensive,) overcome any price objections within your copy and show how paying more is a great investment. The more you know what your reader is thinking when he or she reaches your landing page, the more persuasive your content.

Boost your benefit statements

Have you ever wanted to scream “HOW DOES THIS PRODUCT HELP ME?!” Yeah. Me too. Features are nice but they don’t tell the whole story. It’s one thing to sell a hard hat. It’s another to discuss how your hard hat won’t slip off, is ultra comfortable and won’t cause headaches. Statements like that will cause your target reader to sit up and take notice.

Dare to be different

I am so tired of people saying that their content has to be boring. Why? It’s “industry standard.” If they write it any differently, their target market may respond negatively. Look at companies like AppSumo. Their content for their Piktochart product not only tells a story, it tells a funny story – plus weaves in some impressive benefit statements. They even use the words “you” and “your.” Their sales copy shows being different works and can truly differentiate your product line. Sure, I’m sure they’ve tested their results to confirm that the tone and feel is spot on. But at least they took a chance rather than following the herd.

Instead of making excuses, why not go out on a limb? Try one (or more) of these spicy techniques and see what sticks. Rewrite a landing page. Test new approaches via social media.

You may be surprised at the results. And you may make more money, too.

Hey, you can repurpose a toilet paper roll as a seedling pot. It’s even easier to repurpose your content!

If you’re not repurposing content, you should be!

Save time and energy on coming up with new content – and easily fill up that content calendar – by repackaging existing content in multiple ways. For more on how, check out Niki Payne’s guide to repurposing content in post #2.

Repurposing also helps for those times when you’ve – *gasp!* – lost your writing motivation. It happens to all of us, and Len Markidan offers help in post #4.

Also, to keep with the repurposed-toilet-paper-roll-as-seedling-pot that’s over to your right – get growing! Grow your subscriber list – because that’s where your money is! Rob Young tells you how to add 500 subscribers with a contest in #6, and write high-converting landing pages with Sean Ellis’ six principles of persuasion in #9.

You speak to a new client. You’re excited to work with them. You’ve signed an agreement. Yay! This is going to be fun.

But when you start writing their web copy, you begin to feel a little insecure.

Is your copy good enough? Do you really understand their business well enough?

Writing for a variety of clients is great.

You get to know different people and different businesses.

But it can be challenging, too.

How can you learn enough about each business to make each client happy? How can you write copy that converts so your clients can grow their business?

1. Sneak into the head of your reader

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

When you don’t know who you’re writing for, you can’t write good copy.

Before you start writing, ask your client who their ideal customer is:

Is he male or female?

How old is he?

What is he looking for? And how does your client help him achieve his objectives?

What makes him feel frustrated? And how does your client take these frustrations away?

What type of language speaks to him most strongly? Formal or informal? Rebellious or friendly? Streetwise or business-like?

After you’ve written your copy, imagine yourself phoning the ideal customer and reading your copy aloud to him. Are you inspiring him to buy? Are you taking away his objections to buying? Or does he slam down the phone because you sound so ridiculous?

When you know who you’re writing for, your copy becomes engages and seduces the right people. And that makes your clients happy because they’ll gain higher quality leads.

2. Dig up the details that make a business special

When you don’t understand enough about a business, your copy becomes wishy-washy, watery and ineffective.

Only when you understand the specific details, can you make your copy credible and compelling.

“When people perceive certain general statements as puffery or typical advertising babble, those statements are at best discounted or accepted with some doubts. By contrast, statements with specific facts can generate strong believability.” ~ Joe Sugarman

Learn as much about your client’s business as you can. Never be afraid to ask more questions, for instance:

When a client tells me their facilities are state-of-the-art, I ask them to explain to me why this is the case. What makes their facilities so special? What makes their facilities better than their competitor’s?

When a client tells me their customer service is excellent, I ask them to give me specific examples of how they treat their customers.

When a client tells me their customers are looking for modern interior design, I ask them to explain exactly what makes a modern interior appealing. And I ask for examples of the type of interior designs their clients admire.

Learn more details about a business, so you can write copy that’s more specific, credible and persuasive. That’s how your client can win more business thanks to your copy.

3. Focus on benefits

Readers aren’t interested in your client’s products.

They’re not interested in your client’s company.

They want to know how they can benefit.

Clients are often so wrapped up in their products and services that they forget what’s in it for their customers.

“The most frequent reason for unsuccessful advertising is advertisers who are so full of their own accomplishments (the world’s best seed!) that they forget to tell us why we should buy (the world’s best lawn!).” ~ John Caples

Always ask your clients why a customer should care about a feature. How does it make their life better? What problems does it take away?

4. Keep your web copy concise

Long sentences and long paragraphs make your web copy drab. They’re not inviting. They wear your readers down.
How can you be more concise? And keep web visitors reading on?

Make your copy easy to scan by using straightforward headlines and subheads.

Don’t be overly clever. Instead, use simple terms to get your message across.

Use bullet points. Because they’re easy to scan.

Avoid copy sagging under adjective sludge. Highlight all adjectives in your draft copy, and remove as many as you can.

Word count doesn’t indicate the value of your copy.

In contrast, your writing is most valuable when you communicate a clear message concisely.

5. Be compelling

What’s the purpose of each web page?

What would you like your reader to do next?

Should readers pick up the phone to call your client? Or should they sign up to an email list? Or buy straightaway?

Understand your client’s sales funnel, and how the website (and your copy!) should contribute to sales. Agree on website objectives and a call-to-action for each page.

Make your calls-to-action crystal-clear, and conversions will go up, making your client happy.

The Truth About Your Client’s Copy

To write persuasive copy, you have to become a super salesman, a supreme marketer and an excellent psychologist.

Get to know your client’s business at least as well as your client does.

Sneak into the head of their ideal customer. Tap into their desires and dreams; and take away their objections to buying from your client.

That’s how you write persuasive copy. And that’s how you make your client deliriously happy.

And happy clients means more business for you, and more referrals and higher fees.

About the author

Henneke Duistermaat is an irreverent copywriter and marketer. She’s on a mission to stamp out gobbledygook and to make boring business blogs sparkle. Get her free 16-Part Snackable Writing Course for Busy People and learn how to enchant your readers and win more business.

Want to become a full-time writer? Check out post #1 for ways to overcome woes and live your dream.

Leave all of the above writer cliches behind – oh, except for that “successful” one (which isn’t a writer cliche at all anyway) – and live your dream of becoming a full-time writer. Carlos Cooper shares how he did it – and how you can, too!

You may fear that SEO writing is too technical. Or it’s too unnatural to write “how Google wants.”

Relax. SEO writing is much easier than you think.

If you’re looking to build a new skill set, here are the essential things you need to know.

- You need to be a good writer. Period.

Can you tell a compelling story? Can you keep readers on the edge of their seats, salivating for more information? Good. SEO writing is more than “giving Google what it wants.” It’s being a good writer – period. That means years of writing, practice and good old fashioned trial and error. Understanding Google’s “rules” doesn’t mean a thing if your site copy sucks.

- What you think is SEO writing may not be accurate

I’ve talked with many writers who say, “SEO writing is so unnatural. I don’t want to worry about keyphrases, meta descriptions and search engine stuff.” I get it. I do. At the same time, the definition of good SEO writing has changed over time. It’s no longer about sticking as many keyphrases into the content as you can. It’s about writing tremendous content and making it easy for people to find it. Once you learn the “rules” of SEO writing, you’ll see that they aren’t as restrictive as you thought!

- Geek speak? No problem. You’ve got this.

HTML. Meta descriptions. rel=author. SEOs’ alphabet-soupy terminology can be scary – especially if you’re a new writer. After hearing the terminology, some writers decide right then to never learn SEO. After all, SEO is what “geeky people do.”

Although the terminology is a bit propeller-head geeky, it’s actually easy to figure out. Yes, there’s a learning curve. No, you won’t understand everything in a day. But you will understand it. It just takes practice.

- You really do need to learn this stuff.

If you write in-house, mastering SEO writing will give you the skills to really shine. The content you write will be sharable, seen by the right people and drive lots of yummy traffic. That means great job security (and more opportunities) for you. If you’re freelancing, offering SEO writing services to your clients gives you another profit center. After all, if you don’t offer it as a service – your competition will.

- No matter what, it will help your career.

Are you selling a book? Understanding SEO will help you reach more people, build your authority and create a killer author platform. Starting a side business? Why pay an SEO consultant to drive traffic when you can do the work yourself? Want to get a better writing job? Companies love working with experienced writers with proven track records. A few hours of learning time could result in a huge income jump. That’s some pretty powerful ROI.

I love teaching people how to be better writers! If you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll learn about the latest blog posts, be first in line for exclusive sales and more. Join me!

More content no longer means more success in SEO. It just means too much content.

When it comes to content creation, we’re seeing a shift in quantity to real quality. The launch of Google’s original Panda algorithm, which targeted thin content, started this big focus shift, which continues to this day.

1. Goals Define Your Definition of Quality

Quality is in the eye of the beholder (the reader or customer). That means quality varies from person to person.

Ultimately, quality is defined by your goals. The content you create needs to be beneficial to you as a company.

What sells? What’s profitable? The content you create should have a business benefit.

If you sell 50 products, but only 10 are real movers and shakers, start there. Explore related topics to those products and prioritize creating content around those items. Don’t start with the whole company or every product.

Don’t be too commercial or create content that is totally unrelated to your business. Find balance.

2. Winning Types of Content

The best sites are those that are resourceful, helpful and interesting. People link to and share this type of content. You also want to be viewed as forward thinking.

Some examples of content that, when executed well, are popular include:

How-to guides

Long-form content

Lists (Greatest/Best/Top 10/15/20, etc.)

Infographics

Visual guides (especially on Pinterest).

Content should exist for a reason, such as to solve a problem or answer a question. Visit a support forum and see what questions people are asking. Wherever there are lapses or content gaps, there is a content opportunity!

When your content is really resourceful, it will be shared and referenced. And it can help brand you as an authority on a topic.

3. More Minds = More Great Ideas

You’ve done your keyword research using your tools of choice. You’ve explored popular hashtags on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. And you’ve looked at sites like Reddit to see what is being written about in your niche.

Don’t stop there.

Once a week, gather everyone on your team together in front of a whiteboard and start coming up with ideas. Most people get ideas from other people’s ideas.

By pulling in all the minds you can, you’ll get a lot better variety of ideas. Come up with 100 ideas in one session.

Once you’re done, have everyone involved in the process score the ideas from 1-10. Put it all together in Excel and you’ll get a good sense of what ideas have the most potential to be popular and help you successfully hit all your goals.

4. Look at Your Competitors’ Content

What is getting the most social shares and comments on your competitor’s site? What are they showcasing?

Certain content succeeds, some doesn’t. Look at what content works, and compare it to what content doesn’t work. See what is getting the most traction for your competitor and figure out what similar types of content might also work for you.

5. Push Your Content Further

Your content can always be better. Your goal is to be at least a little better than the competition.

Ask yourself these questions when you’re writing:

Is there more to the story?

Has it happened before?

Does it relate to current events?

Are there unanswered questions?

How are you adding perspective?

Also, make sure to do a quick search and social lookup to make sure your article is complete, add quotes and references, and link out to related information that adds value.

People are going to share the best source, the one with all the information. Make sure your content isn’t just one of 50 stories about a topic.

6. Formatting Your Content

Provide quotable, shareable, linkable text excerpts. Providing people with excerpts will help them share on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites, which will then drive more people to your site.

Break paragraphs for easy skimming. Try to limit yourself to one idea per paragraph. The majority of folks have lost interest in deep-form reading, so make it easy for people to skim.

Use bulleted lists. These help break up content, are easier to read and let you highlight key words and phrases.

Optimize for mobile. Make sure people can read and share your content on mobile devices, and make sure your content loads fast with a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights.

Avoid commercial elements (e.g., shopping cart buttons) or pop-ups (e.g., ads, signups). These end the user experience. Users are turned off, close your page and leave the site (and may never return). Also try to avoid ads within content.

Get rid of old junk: Ditch those calendars, tag clouds, counters, and any old social buttons.

7. Don’t Forget the Power of Social

If you see a bunch of people waiting outside a restaurant to get in, you presume it’s good. The online equivalent of this is social engagement.

If you see that a piece of content has many likes, retweets or comments, this sets up a subconscious expectation in a reader’s mind that the content they’re about to experience is of a certain level of quality. Don’t forget to promote your content socially and engage when people comment (or start the discussion in a positive way).

About the Author
Danny Goodwin is Associate Editor of Search Engine Watch, the longest-running search industry publication dedicated to covering the latest search and social marketing news and trends, as well as providing how-to guides and actionable advice for marketers and advertisers of all skill levels. You can find him on Twitter.

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